Brash on a break
I couldn’t blog this earlier as I was with clients and then at select committee, so by now most will have seen the story about Don Brash taking a few days off to work on problems in his marriage.
One of the absolute turnoffs for becoming an MP is that issues in your private life become a matter of public notice. It’s awful both for the MP but equally so for their spouses and children.
I would ask any commenters to comment in a fashion which they would like others to adopt if talking about their family.
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Tags: National
September 13th, 2006 at 8:10 pm
I would say that if Labour think they will get away with dragging Don Brash and his family through the mud, they are seriously mistaken.
I find it utterly disgusting that Helen Clark, Michael Cullen, Pete Hodgson and Trevor Mallard have seen fit to target somebody’s personal life.
Brash’s response–of dignity in the face of cowardice under parliamentary privilege from Labour–will be well remembered by the electorate next election.
And at Labour’s current rate, that election will come much sooner.
September 13th, 2006 at 8:12 pm
Well, Don Brash has been an outstanding leader of the National Party. I sincerely hope that he is able to sort out his personal life and can continue to lead.
September 13th, 2006 at 8:15 pm
David, but this is a political issue:
To quote from http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2004/s1067173.htm
The Nationals leader, Dr Don Brash, started the sparring by accusing Helen Clark of being “indifferent to the institution of marriage”.
Sadly, Don put marriage – his marriages – into the public domain in 2004.
If you get into the gutter you expet to get kicked – Cullen, around the time he was thinking of quitting.
September 13th, 2006 at 8:21 pm
Sinner – Brash’s letter was not referring to behaviour but to political views on religious issues.
Several dozen MPs in recent years have had marriage difficulties as MPs. Brash should have the same consideration as they have had to sort things out.
September 13th, 2006 at 8:21 pm
Sinner
Yes he did but he also unconditionally apologised for it.
He has now learned that his apology was wasted on the likes of the Labour attack dogs.
September 13th, 2006 at 8:28 pm
Like this is going to make me change my vote to Labour.
The sooner they are consigned to the scapheap of history the better.
September 13th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
I just know what I seen on the news. Does any one know how this got made public? I heard comments in the house about Brash and an affair. Apparently, Brian Connell, National raised this in caucus. I did not think the media was present at caucus meetings. If that is the case how did it get on the news tonight?
September 13th, 2006 at 8:31 pm
Indeed, David: a number of current Cabinet ministers have been shown considerable respect by MPs from across the House, and the media, while they deal with their relationship issues.
Far more respect than Brash was shown by Hodgson, Mallard, Benson-Pope, Cullen, Clark, and others.
For the next two days, Labour will bask in its own glory of having landed Brash a kick below the belt.
Voters will remember who played fair, tho’.
September 13th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
It will be interesting to see how the Nats respond to this. Firstly, they should expel the disaffected South Island MP who has been stiring up trouble in caucus. He’s a big problem and is best gone.
Secondly, if they are smart they will turn the tables completely on the subject. Turn it into an attack on Labour for them attacking an MP’s private life (as they promised they would do last week in parliament). They should make that the subject of debate in the media – ‘Personal attacks by a realing government’. This is how Labour would respond in the same situation and it is why they have come through so many difficulties in the past 8 years.
September 13th, 2006 at 8:40 pm
Chuck Bird:
I’d easily believe it of Connell, but it’s funny how he didn’t confirm and (again) Duncan Garner’s source for what allegedly went down is caucus wasn’t willing to go on the record.
I’ve both e-mailed and rung Three, and make it clear Three News/Campbell Live have more to worry about than it’s pimped credibility, but two lost viewers. I cannot – and don’t want to – try dictating what Three News puts on air; but I do have the choice not to support a channel that’s joined One in the land of the brain-dead.
September 13th, 2006 at 8:41 pm
It will be interesting to see how the Nats respond to this. Firstly, they should expel the disaffected South Island MP who has been stiring up trouble in caucus. He’s a big problem and is best gone.
Secondly, if they are smart they will turn the tables completely on the subject. Turn it into an attack on Labour for them attacking an MP’s private life (as they promised they would do last week in parliament). They should make that the subject of debate in the media – ‘Personal attacks by a realing government’. This is how Labour would respond in the same situation and it is why they have come through so many difficulties in the past 8 years.
September 13th, 2006 at 8:42 pm
It’s absolutely despicable the way Hodgson, Mallard, Benson-Pope, Cullen, Clark, and others made Don Brash have an affair.
September 13th, 2006 at 8:43 pm
i think as a politician accountable to the people your private life should be up for public scrutiny (like the Clinton affair), if relevant to your integrity. depends on what’s actually going on really
September 13th, 2006 at 8:45 pm
One wishes Don Brash and his family all the best.
Leading up to the election Labour was in trouble so they dipped into the public purse and overspent.
Now they are in trouble they have taken to vicious political attacks.
It now seems as if one single National MP is more interested in his own agenda – whatever that might be – than holding Labour to account. What a pathetic individual.
September 13th, 2006 at 8:51 pm
Seems to me dirty politics usually backfires on the instigators. The Moyle affair is a classic example, if I remember correctly a guy named David Lange took over the vacant seat in Parliament and turned out to be the nemesis of Muldoon.
My guess is that the Nats will choose a new leader. The NZ public isn’t in to this sort of gutter politics and will remember at the next election. The Nats do need to be smart and not wallow in the shit and mud with these corrupt sleazebags.
Helen Clarks legacy as PM isn’t going to be memorable…..
September 13th, 2006 at 8:52 pm
Before you start blaming the executive for the ‘personal attack’, remember nothing specific was said in the House last week. It only became an issue after a National Party backbencher decided to vent his frustrations to a persistent journalist, and was subsequently published this morning.
But all that aside, I think Trotter’s sound reasoning Campbell Live tonight illustrates exactly why there’s a public interest in the issue.
September 13th, 2006 at 8:54 pm
Joel:
Labour went out and ran a sleaze strategy last week, and it’s playing out according to plan. Own it, and just hope that karma isn’t real and enjoy the schadenfreude while you can. There’s plenty of salacious gossip doing the rounds in Wellywood, and some of it just might come back to bite certain sections of the political and media establishments in the arse. I sincerely hope not, but the problem is that when you lower a bar it stays down.
September 13th, 2006 at 8:57 pm
THIS is Labour’s answer to the allegations of illegal conduct?
This is their answer to accusations that they’re thieves, hypocrites and liars?
Message to Labour: not all of us are fans of Women’s Weekly and the petty scandals and beat-ups in what passes for newspapers in New Zealand.
And we vote.
September 13th, 2006 at 8:59 pm
Hi Craig
Just wondering if you listened to Trotter’s comments about why he thought the Brash story was of sufficient interest. If so, what did you make of them?
September 13th, 2006 at 9:01 pm
Hope the Brashs’ can work all this out for their own satisfaction and for the results they desire.
What I do not understand is how any National MP can justify leaking this to the media.
Labour is seriously on the back foot for the first time since the last election and one National MP shoots them all in the feet!
Duh?
September 13th, 2006 at 9:02 pm
Ms. Deare:
I thought Trotter’s performance on Campbell Live was a classic example of trying to have your cake and eat it too – all of a piece with his extraordinary transformation into the SST’s resident apoligist for campaign fraud, in the interests of the “greater good” of course. It’s always funny how the self-interest of cheap populist politicians and sleazy tabloid hacks always coincides precisely with ‘the public interest’.
September 13th, 2006 at 9:06 pm
Not true, Susan. Labour specifically made reference in the House all last week to all the parties involved. They consistently taunted Brash, among other MPs. They then specifically threatened to make public statements providing the details.
This is a Labour Party smear. At least five current Cabinet Ministers were involved with it: Mallard, Benson-Pope, Cullen, Clark, and Hodgson. They had one intention: to knee-cap Brash, for one reason only: he was holding the Government to account for its misuse of taxpayer funds.
Give him a couple of days, he will bounce back, and the voters will remember just how low Labour goes.
September 13th, 2006 at 9:06 pm
Politics can be a brutal game and you have to wonder why people would want to put themselves in the public eye like politians do.
It is too early to say if this is the end for Brash but if National is going to win the next election they need to have John Key as leader. Don Brash simply is not leadership material and is not Prime Minister material. I might (and it is a big might considering some of the drivel on this site) consider voting for National if they change their leader.
September 13th, 2006 at 9:07 pm
The word “corruption” has been cast liberally across Parliament’s debating chamber lately. The National Party has applied the term to Labour’s public spending at the last election, and Labour applies it to private spending in support of National at the same election. Neither charge can be sustained.
http://subs.nzherald.co.nz/section/466/story.cfm?c_id=466&ObjectID=10400977
Well the penny dropped at even this old tory rag. OK guys all together now one more screeching round of the “CORRUPTION CHORUS”, and this time with the arm-flapping action.
September 13th, 2006 at 9:15 pm
“I thought Trotter’s performance on Campbell Live was a classic example of trying to have your cake and eat it too…”
I was going to post saying exactly that when Craig beat me to it — in act I was saying exactly that to the TV screen while Trotter sat their slinging swill out of one side of his mouth while disowning it from the other.
Of course Campbell Live was also trying to have its cake too while consuming it all so loftily.
I wonder which part of the phrase “private life” people can’t understand.
Trotter’s explanation for Brash’s private life having “public interest” was entirely self-serving; the only “public interest” lies in the interest Labour and Co have in diverting the public’s attention from how this Government paid for its pledge cards; in how it intends to pay to defend that misappropriation (ie., with more misappropriation); and in today’s news that an international organisation has joined the growing number of people concerned at the corruption of a Government that recognises no limits to what it can get away with.
That’s my five-cents worth.
September 13th, 2006 at 9:16 pm
mjl:
My assessment: If it was Matthew Hooten (or the editor of a right-wing Murdoch-owned British tabloid) trying to justify an identical hit job on Helen Clark, he wouldn’t have had a bar for the nonsense he was spouting. I thought Dr Therese Arseneau – who teaches in the poli sci debartment at Canterbury, and was hardly that warm towards Brash during the election campaign – took the wind out of Trotter’s sails a bit.
September 13th, 2006 at 9:16 pm
I think politicians should be accorded a degree of privacy. On the other hand, if a particularly prominent one were to have an affair while holding that position, that would seem immensely foolish. And I don’t just include those currently under scrutiny in that respect.
September 13th, 2006 at 9:16 pm
Sinner – Brash’s letter was not referring to behaviour but to political views on religious issues.
And it came in the context of what now looks like a bloody hypocritical campaign on family values. He only apologised after a journalist bailed him up by pointing out that his first marriage was ended by his affair with his current wife.
Now that TV3 has aired it, it’s presumably safe to point out the political dimension: the woman Brash has been having the affair with is Diane Foreman of the Business Roundtable; the same person who helped line up support for his leadership bid and suggested the “no Brash, no money” strategy to business sector donors.
I’ve known about this since September last year – as, I am sure, you have too David. Nobody mentioned it, and all that time he’s been parading around with his poor wife. It would be nice to hear a little sympathy for *her*, don’t you think?
I’m not married but I’ve been with my partner for nigh on 20 years, and ever since civil unions became an issue I’ve had to listen to conservative knobheads telling me my relationship is inferior. If I’d cheated once, let alone lied for months on end, don’t think I’d be looking for sympathy.
And let us not forget this creepy little thread from Sir Humphreys passim, where AL and others got quite a lather on pronouncing about Clark’s marriage (“a 20 year intentional sham”) and declaring that the issue was “honesty” and “openness”:
http://sirhumphreys.blogspot.com/2005/09/holmes-special-on-mr-peter-davis.html
And, finally, I think it’s worth pointing out that this was brought to a head by a member of Brash’s own caucus, who called him on it – it wasn’t a sudden fit of honesty on Brash’s part. And John Key hasn’t exactly been slow out of the gates either.
Cheers,
RB
September 13th, 2006 at 9:22 pm
“I thought Trotter’s performance on Campbell Live was a classic example of trying to have your cake and eat it too…”
I was going to post saying exactly that when Craig beat me to it — in act I was saying exactly that to the TV screen while Trotter sat their slinging swill out of one side of his mouth while disowning it from the other.
Of course Campbell Live was also trying to have its cake too while consuming it all so loftily.
I wonder which part of the phrase “private life” people can’t understand.
Trotter’s explanation for Brash’s private life having “public interest” was entirely self-serving; the only “public interest” lies in the interest Labour and Co have in diverting the public’s attention from how this Government paid for its pledge cards; in how it intends to pay to defend that misappropriation (ie., with more misappropriation); and in today’s news that an international organisation has joined the growing number of people concerned at the corruption of a Government that recognises no limits to what it can get away with.
That’s my five-cents worth.
September 13th, 2006 at 9:24 pm
If the affair rumour is correct then I hope that Don falls on his sword and Key steps in. Labour would then be destroyed as National would have proved once and for all that they live by the principles and moral standards that most NZers (except Labour party supporters) still hold dear.
September 13th, 2006 at 9:27 pm
Oh, and I’m sure someone is going to try and Christine Keeler me and say, “but you’re a Tory, of course you’d say that.”
Well, yes. I’ve also been taking some heat here recently for saying (and sorry for going there) I don’t really give a damn whether Helen Clark’s private consensual sexual activity is with her husband, another man, or I-don’t-give-a-stuff-how-many women. I have big problems with her public performance as head of a Government that should be put out of it’s miserty ASAP, but that’s go nothing to do with her private life.
There have been rumours about her sexual orientation doing the rounds since… well, when she started building a profile in the Princes Street Branch in the early 70′s. Sleaze isn’t like vintage wine – it doesn’t become more palatable with age. Trotter diagrees, and I think he’s wrong.
September 13th, 2006 at 9:33 pm
RB you seem to have such joy in pronouncing your judgement and making public details that haven’t previously been discussed by the media.
Does this make up for the demoliton job you lefties have been getting for the last month?
So Don had an affair. It still doesn’t come close to fraud.
RB the questions not going to go away.
When are you and your lefty hypocritical mates going to pay our money back?
September 13th, 2006 at 9:35 pm
Russell – I have not *known* and still do not know, but yes have been aware of rumour for around the same period. I would remind you that at this stage it is alleged, not admitted.
I know Je Lan quite well, and as I said in the post I hoep people respect that there are family involved here.
Many MPs on all sides have had affairs. Any moral high ground from others is a dangerous place to be. And I hope Russell you were as outraged on behalf of Hillary Clinton when she was lied to.
Connell’s behaviour was inexcusable, and gave the media the oppoorunity to report on it, make no mistake that Labour Ministers have been actively pushing this story for many weeks, as part of a co-ordinated strategy to force the story into the open.
But now is not the time for politics on the issue. That will sadly happen in due course.
September 13th, 2006 at 9:39 pm
DPF
After checking the legality perhaps you could run a postal betting system (publishing results on the blog of course) taking bets on whether;
If a direct link to this exposed personal information about Brash is traced back to illegally taken emails, will the Police prosecute?
September 13th, 2006 at 9:42 pm
I wonder which part of the phrase “private life” people can’t understand.
If Clark had been secretly porking an important sector-group contact for her party – say, Ross Wilson, or a major donor – for a year, and it came out, I would think she’d been guilty of astoundingly poor judgement. And I’d feel *very* sorry for her spouse. I’m a little surprised at the absence of similar thoughts in the thread above.
Cheers,
RB
September 13th, 2006 at 9:42 pm
Russell:
Oh come on… we can play ‘I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours’ all night – creepy and actionable comments (mostly anonymous as these things tend to be) from all extremes of the political spectrum, and even exchange bits of bloggage we’d both agree aren’t exactly models of temperate language or high-minded argument. What does that prove – there are some real arseholes out there? I’ll give you the point right now.
If you want to be honest with yourself and say, anyone whose politics I don’t like is fair game – fine. There’s plenty of people on all sides of the political spectrum who will play by those rules, and we’re all going to come out smelling of shit. Just don’t complain too hard when it starts coming back, OK?
September 13th, 2006 at 9:48 pm
Russell, why the persistent hard-on for SH and LGF?
We know at least a few of the SH contributors are crackpots. To me, linking to SH indicates your argument is otherwise lacking through falling back to them as a last resort.
September 13th, 2006 at 9:52 pm
Get a grip all of you.
Brash has answered questions about his marriage situation before, he used his marriage in PR work as he entered politics. He stood his personal character as an honest married family man with strong values, he opened the door then, himself.
September 13th, 2006 at 9:52 pm
Now that these thieves have crossed the rubicon can we all stop pretending that helen clarke is living within the confines of a heterosexual marriage….
September 13th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
RB:
I notice Three News made liberal use of ‘alleged’ and synonyms in their lead item tonight. And all the ‘important sector-group contact’ had to say to Three was ‘get lost’. Do you have access to sources the rest of us don’t – and when is the video going to posted on You Tube? Sorry for the snark, Russell, but if Sir Humps were carrying on like this about Clark and her hot humpy affair with Andrew Little you’d be scathing.
September 13th, 2006 at 9:58 pm
Craig, like I said, I’ve known about this for a year and haven’t thought about venturing on it. But now that it’s on the public domain, you’ll have accept my word that on a purely personal level I take a dim view of it, and I’m already a little weary of the “marriage problems” euphemism.
I noted the SH thread because I’m quite sure some of the people in it are already talking out the other side of their mouths.
Cheers,
RB
September 13th, 2006 at 9:59 pm
Bugger, there goes the funding from the Exclusive Brethren.
September 13th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
RB its probably not Ross Wilson or Andrew Little shes interested in. More likely Laila Harre is her flavour.
September 13th, 2006 at 10:06 pm
wellwellwell
For all we know it could be an initiation ritual !
September 13th, 2006 at 10:06 pm
With respect, America knew Bill Clinton had wandering eyes and hands as did Hiliary. Thus later revelations only confirmed why some Americans disliked him and confirmed why others liked him regardless of his personal failings. This isn’t the case here.
I have a high regard for Don Brash on a personal level even though I did not believe he would be the leader carrying National to the next election. He is a remarkable New Zealander and turned National around after the mess it got itself into with Bill English and his lack of policy clarity,or philosophical mooring and broad disinterest from Aucklanders.
What makes this announcement all the more poignant is of course the strategy that National has adopted of attacking the personal integrity of Helen Clark and the Government she leads. National opted for a tone of high dungeon and moral outrage and in doing so more seriously damaged her Government that at any time since her election in 1999. ‘Corruption’ ‘dishonestly’ ‘theft’ are common coin with both big parties now believing they were cheated at the last election and both scrapping about who cheated more.
The problem for National is that it has in affect cost them their Leader.
The trauma in the personal life of Don Brash attacks his very political strength – the honest non politician leader. Now it not that he is worse than most other politicians but rather that he is no better. His personal integrity is now up for question in a more fundamental way than Helen Clark’s is over the pledge card.
Generally one should not affect the tone and rectitude of the manse when dealing with one’s opponents without the manse being in order – both the personal life and one’s own party’s conduct during the last election.
What is worse Labour may well tinker with Electoral Law arrangements to make it harder for those citizens who want to see the end of the Labour Government. I am sure the Greens and Winston First will largely go along with this agenda.
There are never any coincidences in politics and sadly there are also a number of interests being served by this latest revelation.
Realistically National has little choice – timing and some level of seemliness are the only issue now.
September 13th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
Brian Connell is MAD – what was he thinking stabbing his own party in the back ?
Has someone from Labour paid him money to do this vicious act ?
I do not believe that Don Brash is the only MP guilty of an affair.
I am sure there are many more MPs from the various political parties who have affairs tucked away in the closet. Some of which are same sex affairs, I would presume.
How would these other MPs feel if their affairs were made public ?
Ugh! such gutter politics is revolting !
There are many leaders in this country both in govt and in private sector who have had affairs, but that has not interfered with their professional capabilities.
Who are we to judge people’s private lives ? Let the first sinless man/woman throw the first stone.
September 13th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
Ha ha wellwellwell. Nice!
September 13th, 2006 at 10:09 pm
Brian Connell is MAD – what was he thinking stabbing his own party in the back ?
Has someone from Labour paid him money to do this vicious act ?
I do not believe that Don Brash is the only MP guilty of an affair.
There would be many more MPs from the various political parties who have affairs tucked away in the closet. Some of which are same sex affairs, I would presume.
Ugh! such gutter politics is revolting !
There are many leaders in this country both in govt and in private sector who have had affairs, but that has not interfered with their professional capabilities.
Who are we to judge people’s private lives ? Let the first sinless man/woman throw the first stone.
September 13th, 2006 at 10:10 pm
Oh, I’ve been in two minds about the Independent Financial Review since it was relaunched by Fairfax. I don’t know if this is what the late, great Warren Berryman really had in mind when he launched The Independent back in ’92 to prove that serious investigative business journalism wasn’t quite dead.
September 13th, 2006 at 10:15 pm
Burt,
Nope, just a harsh lesson in politics for the EBs.
September 13th, 2006 at 10:24 pm
Kittyclaw, Southern Raider
The problem is not so much that he had an affair, but who it was with. You can’t ignore the alleged BRT connection.
September 13th, 2006 at 10:31 pm
Unfortunatly the public at large wont know of the taunts that the Labour Party called out in the house last week because the media cant report them on camera due to speakers rulings. As much as Id like to think that this wont hurt Brash the reality is his respect in the eyes of the public could possiblity go down. Firstly the media isnt reporting this as a Labour attack but rather as a home goal and secondly this is the second time that Brash has been publically exposed as having a n affair. The first time people are likly to forgive and forget indeed it made im look human as opposed to the cold boring monetarist that he is spinned by his opponents to be but to be could out again makes him look like a womaniser.
September 13th, 2006 at 10:34 pm
I’ll have to side with Russell Brown on this issue. And given that he had know about this for so long, I can fully understood his view towards National and in particular Don Brash when they dwelled on certain topics.
Russell, I wish you another 20 faithful years to your companion. Faithfullness is one of the corner stone of marriage.
And Russell, you may also point out, at length please, that marriage, from a conservative point of view, is a matter of public interest. I suppose it wouldn’t be hard to find enough Maxim quotes on this.
September 13th, 2006 at 10:35 pm
The harsh lesson for the Exclusive Brethren is that their ham-fisted attempt to persuade New Zealanders to elect a Don Brash led Government will be used as the pretext by Labour to savage the right of New Zealanders (who are not candidates in an election) to pamphleteer against the Government of the day or for lawful political change.
Labour is proposing to ration and cap the expression of political dissent or require that one ask a parliamentary party for approval, permission or one’s “share” of the allocation of spending. What an outrage. Very very Soviet – both the scheme and the language of “fairness” that surrounds the selling of it.
I cannot understand what the Brethren thought they were doing by meeting with Don Brash (nor the National Party in agreeing to the meeting given their plans) and their behaviour with the Chief Electoral Officer was extremely naïve at best.
September 13th, 2006 at 10:46 pm
Brian Connell is the Judas Iscariot of National Party. Shame on him to damage the party at a time when it was gaining so much ground against Labour. I am simply appalled at his thoughtless action at such a crucial time.
September 13th, 2006 at 10:48 pm
Brian Connell is the Judas Iscariot of National Party. Shame on him to damage the party at a time when it was gaining so much ground against Labour. I am simply appalled at his thoughtless action at such a crucial time.
September 13th, 2006 at 10:49 pm
“I would ask any commenters to comment in a fashion which they would like others to adopt if talking about their family.”
David, are you going to adopt this same line with people commenting on Helen Clark’s marriage?
September 13th, 2006 at 10:55 pm
Will the Nats begin disciplinary proceedings against Connell? They are never going to get out of opposition if they can’t maintain discipline in their caucus. He perhaps should have been expelled from the party a year ago, but certainly now.
Brash’s private life may or may not be of public interest. That is a point of discussion. However lets hope that the media recognise the most important point – Labour have lost the argument on policy, competence and corruption in recent weeks, and they therefore turned to personal attacks. I think most New Zealander’s are sophisticated and grown up enough to see this for what it is – Labour making good on its threats. And if National spins it correctly, Labour will be punished in the polls.
September 13th, 2006 at 10:57 pm
Labour is proposing to ration and cap the expression of political dissent or require that one ask a parliamentary party for approval, permission or one’s “share” of the allocation of spending.
Disingenuous. The current rules do just that. The proposed change simply closes the loophole that until the 2005 Election was only exploited in a very minor and unimportant ways, but with Brash’s explicit foreknowledge and approval was trashed in a very major way by the EB’s.
Failure to close the loophole will simply ensure that everyone will exploit it to the max in 2008 (or whenever). Unions for instance could dis-affiliate from the Labour Party and run their campaigns on a completely “free-speech” basis, attacking the Right, without limit, with no need to gain prior approval from anyone, nor with the spending accounted for in anyone’s returns. After all if it is ok for the EB’s to do what they did, then it would be ok for ANYONE else.
The whole purpose of the current rules would be very quickly subverted, changing the nature of our election campaigns forever. (And incidentally making the current brouhaha over the “pledge card spending” look like a very quaint episode indeed.)
September 13th, 2006 at 11:00 pm
At a time like this, one should be compassionate enough to feel the pain of Je Lan and Don and their families. To have their private lives torn up in public is such a tragedy. What if it was you ?
September 13th, 2006 at 11:04 pm
Someone should advise the parliamentary smoko staff that Helen will not be having a cup of tea. From now on she will be taking a saucer of milk instead.
The word ratbag springs to mind.
September 13th, 2006 at 11:09 pm
Berend:
I’m going to take a deep breath before writing this, I think you’re not only wrong but please don’t presume to present yourself or the Maxim Institute as the arbiter of genuine ‘conservative’ views on this or any other subject. (Personally, I think Maxim is made up of the kind of theo-cons who bear the same resemblance to the conservative tradition that runs from Burke to Reagan as Coke Zero has to a palitable soft drink. But that’s another very big argument for another place.)
You do not speak for me, and I hope there are many conservative Kiwis out there who think Daniel Defoe was right when he wrote, “everybody’s business is nobody’s business” – and that works both ways. Please deplore Brash as much as you please, cast your vote at the next election according to your conscience and best judgement, but don’t you dare say it’s your business to sniff his sheet and pass judgement on what is not yours to judge.
BTW, my partner and I have been together for eleven monogamous years without benefit of clergy. Don’t congratulate either of us, because your approval is neither required nor welcome.
September 13th, 2006 at 11:11 pm
Connell leaked it to the Independent. He is worse than a Labourite. Judy Kirk must expel him from the party tomorrow.
September 13th, 2006 at 11:12 pm
My recollection of Connell was that he was something of a shit, but in this case he has it right.
This isn’t about Brash but about fitness to govern. Brash has to be excised from the equation as a liability to the cause as of today and someone else take over to keep the heat on Labour.
I’m deeply appreciative of what Brash has done for National, but this is the third strike against him as far as his judgement and morality goes and now he must go.
JC
September 13th, 2006 at 11:12 pm
Kittyclaw as Harry S Truman said “if you can’t stand the heat stay out of the kitchen”.
This little episode brings no credit whatsoever to anyone involved.
Whether David likes it or not if these allegations are true and I guess they are, then Don Brash has betrayed his wife and those New Zealanders who look for leaders with moral authority.
Labour, National sleazebags all – plague on both their houses.
.
September 13th, 2006 at 11:20 pm
JC, Connell has every right to question Brash’s position as leader. However this should be done behind closed doors. Disclosing this information to a journalist is not only wrong, it is stupid.
September 13th, 2006 at 11:20 pm
Sophia – on at least a dozen occassions I have warned people about postings regarding Clark/Davis marriage. The last one was only a few days ago.
What people may want to speculate on though is that given Labour MPs constant references to the alleged affair in the House, that presumably this has given the ok for non-Labour MPs to speculate on Labour Mps marriages and affairs.
September 13th, 2006 at 11:24 pm
JC, Connell has every right to question Brash’s position as leader. However this should be done behind closed doors. Disclosing this information to a journalist is not only wrong, it is stupid.
September 13th, 2006 at 11:24 pm
BTW, my partner and I have been together for eleven monogamous years without benefit of clergy. Don’t congratulate either of us, because your approval is neither required nor welcome.
Steady on Craig, I was just enjoying Berend saying something genuinely nice to me …
I don’t think that shagging per se around should disqualify a capable person from leadership, and I generally wouldn’t want to know about it. But I don’t admire infidelity, and I feel sorry for the wronged party. That’s pretty much how I felt about Bill Clinton.
I do think that the political dimension here speaks of shocking judgement on Brash’s part.
Anyway, enough.
Cheers,
RB
September 13th, 2006 at 11:25 pm
That was really well said Craig.
September 13th, 2006 at 11:27 pm
If a politician spends a couple of years telling the country that traditional family values are fundamental to the morality and success of our society, despite apparently being a serial adulterer, then even in discrete little New Zealand the truth will likely out. And hopefully bring you down.
This is of course predicated on the assumption that the reports of the last day are true. And John Campbell for one is evidently convinced they are. I have sympathy for his wife and children; I struggle to muster any for him.
As someone whose is apparently incapable of possessing “family values” I am enjoying a luxurious moment of schadenfreude tonight. I wonder what the fine Brethren folk and Brash’s conservative right are thinking now. They might forgive but will their cheque books be open when he next comes a knocking.
Sanctimony and hypocrisy will only get you so far, the truth is so much more powerful. Let him who is without sin cast the first stone indeed. If he is mainstream New Zealand then I’ll stay happy here on the fringe.
Brash and co seem to have been right about one thing though, traditional marriage is under attack, I am just not sure it was the civil union legislation he voted against that precipitated the problem.
September 13th, 2006 at 11:27 pm
JC, Connell has every right to question Brash’s position as leader. However this should be done behind closed doors. Disclosing this information to a journalist is not only wrong, it is stupid.
September 13th, 2006 at 11:31 pm
It is time for the Cullen issue to be raised in Parliament. Brownlee should do it tomorrow.
September 13th, 2006 at 11:43 pm
DPF,
Agree 100% with your post above.
However the problem for the Nats is that Labour MP’s mostly have nothing to lose in this kind of mud-slinging. Most of them have already discredited themselves in the past, and their marriages are openly accepted as shams. The Nats have families and good careers to protect. Labour MP’s, for the most part, do not.
September 13th, 2006 at 11:45 pm
Surely the important issue is that the alleged partner in this affair was the Deputy Chair of the Business Round Table.
It had become noticeable that National Party policy and Business Round Table policy were converging.
Also this email from Forman to Brash prior to the overthrow of English seems to carry a whole new meaning.
Much more to come. Also I believe 11 chapters of the Exclusive Brethren book have been written. Who is writing it by the way.
September 13th, 2006 at 11:52 pm
Adultery is an act of dishonesty. Like it or not, this does tarnish Brash’s image as an honest person and is relevant. On the other hand, it makes him look more human. It also dispels the image of him as being a bit dry and stuffy.
To deal with Connell now would further take the heat off Labour. Get rid of him during the Summer.
Brash has actually handled this pretty well given that he was knifed by one of his own caucus. And nobody is going to mount a coup now. They would look like dicks. When the AG report comes out, Brash will be back, using the “C” word again, his leadership will remain secure and the issue of whomever he happens to be bonking will be stuck back in the women’s magazines where it belongs.
September 13th, 2006 at 11:58 pm
frankly i didn’t want this to affect his career untill i read the national supporters comments here…
if this is going to be used to attack labour then it’s clear someones going to be made to suffer for national shafting themselves and in this case it well and truely deserves to be national.
September 13th, 2006 at 11:58 pm
I suppose Brash’s actions reflect the sort of ‘mainstream values’ he believes we should all follow and that he demands all immigrants accepts…
September 14th, 2006 at 12:02 am
oh and I guess infidelity is what the Member of Tauranga (ahem!) would prefer to be stuffed down his throat
September 14th, 2006 at 12:04 am
The douchebag calling himself lotd really ought to find us some quotes or references of Brash standing up for “traditional family values”. He’s a liberal presbyterian ffs! I can’t recall Brash *ever* speaking to those ideals. His past indiscretion is well documented and he has said as much. Trying to make Brash out to be morally conservative (or, while we’re on the subject, a warmongerer) is frankly bizarre given his long history of taking opposite action.
September 14th, 2006 at 12:06 am
John Cawston wrote:
This isn’t about Brash but about fitness to govern.
I reply:
And if Three News is accurate, I’d question Connell’s basic competence to be in Parliament, let alone fufil his stated ambition to hold a Cabinet post. If he has ambitions in that direction, his habit of running off to the press gallery every time he gets pissy is not the way to start. If he’s got no respect for caucus confidentiality, why would you expect him to respect collective Cabinet responsibility if he’s not getting his way?
Still, there will be an election and the electorate and list selection processes will grind into gear. Connell is not guaranteed automatic re-selection in Rakaia, and you do have to wonder how many times he can urinate in public before people object to the smell. Hell, I’d even move down there and campaign for Tony Milne if it would get our answer to Johnny Front-Bum retired to private life. To paraphrase a character in Gore Vidal’s The Best Man: A bastard is one thing, there’s plenty of those in politics. It’s the dumb bastards who are really dangerous.
September 14th, 2006 at 12:07 am
Aspiring to equal rights for gays or ethnic minorities does not mean one wants to be gay or a different colour, it simply means that a person possesses tolerance for other lifestyles. Equally expressing support for family values does not mean one is a hypocrite for having an affair, it simply means they are human. Dr Brash and many of us think that family units should be supported and that produces the best outcome for children. Clark seems to believe that the state can fulfil the role of family through the benefit system.
There is no public interest in the taunts in parliament that lead directly to the exposure of this. I very much doubt that someone on the fringes of politics like RB would have known a rumour like this while gallery journalists would have been unaware until told by Connell. Connell is a bumbling cretin for exposing this. I share RB & others sympathy for the family, do not forget in some of the prurient titillation that there is a child involved.
Dr Brash remains a man of huge integrity. Despite this having nothing to do with his leadership capabilitities or prospects for election in 2008 it would not surprise me at all if he offered his resignation to caucus over this.
But for those of us who want to get rid of the lying, thieving, corrupt fraud who leads the country now, lets not descend to the gutter, there is plenty to attack the government on without descending to attacks on peoples private lives.
September 14th, 2006 at 12:13 am
this is NOT so much a private or ethical matter, it is political…shall we call it the politics of hyprocrisy…you run a ‘values’ campaign dividing up those who have supposed kiwi values and those who dont and meanwhile you live to different values in your private life…
when pressed on what were kiwi mainstream values he prattled on about hard work and apple pie and when pressed on who was not mainstream he talked about gays and ‘those who visited prostitutes’…ok the details in his private life are different in detail but the hyprocrisy is the same
September 14th, 2006 at 12:19 am
“JC, Connell has every right to question Brash’s position as leader. However this should be done behind closed doors. Disclosing this information to a journalist is not only wrong, it is stupid.”
That’s why I said he was a shit
However, this simply wasn’t a secret that could be kept much longer, and better to have it out now than drag it through a Parliamentary session with an “October surprise” in election year.
Also, Labour have had their toy taken away from them, and provided Brash goes, Brownlie will be able to ask when Helen is going to do the decent thing (like Don) and resign for her dishonesty over the Pledge card.
JC
September 14th, 2006 at 12:27 am
Blair, if the adultery rumours are true, I don’t think Brash will last. His own party is bitter on that kind of thing, let alone the general public. I hardly think a coup is needed – it’s probably more like damage control at this stage.
And despite all of the slamming of Labour going on over this for being below the belt, it’s still an inside job. It was still Nats who did for Brash. Perhaps they sensed that Labour knew the truth from debating chamber innuendo. Perhaps Labour did know. It’s starting to sound like everyone knew, but no one was admitting. So I can’t see it as especially damaging to Labour. This was a scandal waiting to happen, whether Labour spilled the beans, or some Judas, or a kid working at the local motel.
I hope this scandal will be the end of the tedious round of attacks on personal morality that has typified the last year. It would be nice to hear about the political issues that our government is currently in charge of again. But somehow I get the feeling this whole thing is going to intensify into a morality bloodbath. And, as I always thought, and still think, it’s a bloodbath National will lose, and badly.
Why? Because, as someone commented above, Labour has less to lose. They’ve never set up their position as the moral guardians of society. So their base don’t really give a stuff. That’s what being a liberal is actually about – not caring about what Brash does with his diddle. But the Nats openly purport to stand for a ‘decent society’ and ‘family values’ and their base really buys that stuff. So they actually do get hurt by this kind of scandal.
However, that doesn’t mean it’s all good for Labour. The disaffected can easily go third party.
September 14th, 2006 at 12:39 am
George wrote:
Surely the important issue is that the alleged partner in this affair was the Deputy Chair of the Business Round Table.
I think we all get what you’re insinuating, and it’s really taking this thread to a whole new level of slimy. It’s more than a little insulting to women in the workplace as well – you do know it’s the 21st century, don’t you?
September 14th, 2006 at 12:49 am
On the one hand the mercenaries of global one market for all mammon and their liberal free to choose “temptations”, on the other the conservative sectarians with another new more moral religious family world order in mind (EB and Maxim).
Remaining connected to both strands of support (see West Wing) requires a certain “resourcefulness” from the right and National may have to find someone else to try and do the impossible. Don Brash has done the 1992 revelation and has now reached the “Monica’s” moment. (How and who will he “bomb” to change the topic?)
He comes from a Presbyterian background. Of note is that the issue of the morality required for leadership is now topical in both the church and secular domain.
Religious leadership requires a higher standard, as it involves leadership in the area of “before God idealism” and thus the moral position. Secular leadership only requires being law abiding and not being a hypocrit. Most leaders on the left don’t place themselves at risk (Clinton faces a different societal climate – where only a Christian is today electable), those on the right sometimes do. Brash while liberal leads a most illiberal party (their votes on most social policy is bordering on neanderthal) and has made mistakes on this issue earlier.
National likes to play the family values line, even though it would prefer across the board tax cuts to targeted support for families. This reflects a certain (having their cake and eating it) duplitious attitude. However the alignment of anonymous donors and an “identified BRT connection” supportive of Brash’s leadership strengthens the Labour hand on campaign finance reform/cleaning up the sleaze.
As to the personal side, Brash would have been wondering in 2006/2007 whether he comes back seeking the 2008-2011 job, now he may have cause to consider this earlier. But National has no reason to want this to occur until the later time and will probably encourage him to stay on till the summer (whatever he concludes).
PS On the Church issue – the normal standard for church leadership is no sex outside of marriage (traditional) or none outside of marriage and or civil union (modern). One’s sexuality/sexual identity has little to do with it.
September 14th, 2006 at 12:50 am
Blair were you in NZ during the last election? If so you can hardly have missed Brash’s obsession with family values and mainstream NZ.
If Brash believes even half the apple pie drivel on the National Party website then you can hardly fault my characterisation of him. He might be liberal by National’s standards, but he voted against the civil union bill and was very quick to cosy up to the same Brethren leaders who made a submission against that same act. This hardly marks him out as anti-“family values”.
If I am wrong then someone had better get started amending the National Party website as their (current) leader does not hold National views.
As for “douchebag”, is that really the best you can do? Any schoolkid could do better, or do you find such comments mean people take your arguments more seriously? As for “himself”, wrong again.
September 14th, 2006 at 12:52 am
Yes. What a silly insinuation.
Can we have a list of all the left leaning Unionists who have hooked into left leaning politicians in the past decade then and “may” have influenced policy?
Who he’s bonked here is entirely irrelevant. He’s the player here, not the wife or others.
He hangs out with intelligent, attractive women of the centre right all day – so it’s hardly likely he’s going to fall for a left leaning Unionist is he?
September 14th, 2006 at 2:36 am
lotd, I asked if you had any evidence or quotes to back up what you said. You still haven’t produced any. You’ve effectively said “well… he wasn’t anti family values…”, which is grasping at straws.
Most people understood “mainstream values” to refer to people’s politics, not their personal life. Just because you want to interpret it another way, doesn’t mean that’s what he was referring to. Anybody who knows anything about Brash would find such an interpretation highly unlikely, and effectively left wing spin designed either to discredit him or set him up for a fall.
September 14th, 2006 at 3:35 am
You added the emphasis in “anti”, I did not, I was clearly making the point that he was not anti, the only territory then left is for him to be for the values National espouses, surely not a giant leap when he is leader of that party. Or is he neutral perhaps? Is that your argument?
As moral conservatism is a continuum he is clearly going to be more conservative than some and not others, that there are others more conservative does not make him liberal. The fact that you don’t remember him saying anything about family values at the last election is surely not proof it did not happen, neither is the fact that I don’t carry Morning Report transcripts around with me.
If my argument is so weak I am sure you can produce an extensive list of specific quotes demonstrating that I am wrong. Go to it.
What do you think his voting against the civil union bill demonstrated? I am sure you won’t argue it was due to the Brethren influence. If he is not pro family values are you in fact arguing he is against them? This surely is untenable.
Do you think Brash believes the material on his website? Have you read it? It makes repeated references to family values. A simple question for you: does Brash believe this stuff or not? You sound like an expert so you should be able to answer this fairly easily.
As for mainstream, I have no memory of Brash ever defining this phrase for us, it seemed to mean anything he wanted it to at the time, and mainly meant “not Helen Clark” as far as I could tell. Even the generally ineffective Plunket was able to make Brash tie himself up in knots on this one. What’s your definition? Brash seemed to lack a single sentence version.
Am I to take it that a heavily pierced purple-haired man-hating lesbian homeopathist from Newtown in Wellington who voted ACT would be mainstream in National’s books because they believed that lower tax rates would lead to much needed stimulation of the economy?
Is it really possible to separate the personal from the political?
Your final comments are wonderful; you do save the best for last don’t you? First douchebag, now “left wing spin designed either to discredit him or set him up for a fall”. I’m not left wing, I’m not right wing, I find such analysis tiresome and rather 20th century. I simply don’t like Brash’s politics and now his moral hypocrisy has been laid out for all to see. And I’d love to be able to “set him up for a fall,” but you flatter me, sadly I lack that power. Plus I’d have to queue jump his colleagues and his infidelities to achieve that aim.
September 14th, 2006 at 3:40 am
A further query, are infidelity and hypocrisy mainstream? If so, is mainstream a good thing, a bad thing, or just a vague and basically useless description of the majority of the population?
I guess it can’t be the latter as National represents the mainstream and they lost the last election, so it must mean something else, I wonder what.
September 14th, 2006 at 6:31 am
Logix
It amuses me how you pop up at any mention of things “Soviet”.
I said:
Labour is proposing to ration and cap the expression of political dissent or require that one ask a parliamentary party for approval, permission or one’s “share” of the allocation of spending.
You replied:
“Disingenuous. The current rules do just that. The proposed change simply closes the loophole that until the 2005 Election was only exploited in a very minor and unimportant ways, but with Brash’s explicit foreknowledge and approval was trashed in a very major way by the EB’s.”
Not disingenuous at all I correctly outlined what the Labour Party is proposing. They intend to extend Electoral Act controls which are currently limited to political parties, candidates and their agents to citizens who are not political parties, candidates or the agents thereof but rather are exercising a basic right.
The right to exercise the freedom of political expression isn’t a “loophole” as you put it. All that previously was required was an authorisation statement on those things constituting an “electoral notice.” Other than that the Electoral Act did not abridge your basic rights.
Again you seem to exhibit a very stateist/parliamentary centric view of democracy and civil society which is frankly dangerous.
I have no problem with Unions advocating for their particular views or the Exclusive Brethren, or the Tiddlywinks Club or any number of groups and individuals having their say so long as they are not acting as agents for those who are contesting elections. As a voter you are free to put what weight you wish on the clamour, cacophony and restlessness that accompanies a healthy democracy.
Regarding the Exclusive Brethren while both they and National were perhaps unwise, on the current evidence they were not acting on National’s behalf. Nor is favouring or not favouring the policies or personalities of a political party or candidate the test for a relationship of agency.
The basic point is that it is unseemly for Labour to propose to restrict the fundamental freedoms of all New Zealanders because they disagree with what some New Zealanders say about them.
On another note, it is sooooo amusing how even in the most intimate personal relationships the leftwing analysis of marriage difficulties is about “sectoral groups” and their influence and therefore it’s fair game (evidence Russell Brown above). What an utterly dismal perverted view of matters of love and all the joys and sorrows that can flow from it.
September 14th, 2006 at 6:47 am
Gosh it gets worse.
Apparently Brash is actually a secret leftwinger who doesn’t support a smaller state, less tax and greater personal freedom….. it’s just that via marital infidelity he came under the influence of the Business Round Table …… ah and all those anonymous donors (who aren’t actually anonymous) who purchased policy (that but for the money he would not advocate. And before all that, he was a public policy and philosophical dilettante of course.
Give me a break.
September 14th, 2006 at 6:48 am
Craig Ranapia, if you just read the NZ Herald or follow parliament, you might be aware that Brash live wasn’t private. And for a public person you never are private.
Just the fact already that RB knew about him having an affair, and knew he couldn’t talk about it, and perhaps having to hear him lecturing on morality, I can feel exactly what he must have felt.
If you can’t be honest to your wife, can you be with the NZ public? That’s the question the NZ public will ask. And if you run for office, this is a matter of interest, purely because it could have become public knowledge at any time.
Don had this hanging over his head. It could have been brought out in the open. You might believe private affairs shouldn’t be discussed, but how would you prevent it? Anyone can bring it up right before the election. You really think National wants to discuss Don before the election?
That’s what would have happened. And National would sit on the sidelines again.
September 14th, 2006 at 7:18 am
Berend:
So, if I start a rumour you (say) are a closeted homosexual in a marriage of convenience with a lesbian, and a taste for soliciting underage male prostitutes in public lavatories, the only bar I have to meet is:
1) It’s been circulating for a while.
2) I’ve heard it from a lot of people.
3) Mr de Boer is a contributor to a fairly high profile blog of a conservative bent, therefore he is a ‘public figure’.
4) If we can’t trust him to he open about his sexual preferences and forget whether that’s actually any of my business – how can we trust him on any subject?
5) And if I don’t, hey, somebody else will sooner or later.
Well, that’s my job interview for editor of The Sun or National Inquirer done and dusted. But it seems to me that you’re using alleged ‘principle’ as a pretty ratty fig-leaf for sheet-sniffing prurience, in every bit as disingenuous a manner as the Connells, Mallards and TV Threes of the world. I also find it bitterly amusing that the ethical reasoning of a self-professed ‘conservative’ boils down to the infantile amorality of everybody else is doing it too.
September 14th, 2006 at 7:26 am
A pox on the taboo that protects the private lives of politicians and turns parliament into a secret society. If pollys want to run my life then I am entitled to know if they can run their own.
September 14th, 2006 at 7:32 am
Craig, it seems every journalist and his dog knew about this affair. They choose not to report on it. But what effect do you think it had on their reporting? Absolutely none?
And Craig, Don isn’t stepping down because of a rumour. He’s stepping down because of marital difficulties. That gives the rumour some legs, doesn’t it?
And you totally misread my post that we should talk about it or discuss it, because someone else might.
That wasn’t my point. It is his private life. Of course. We shouldn’t discuss it. But how do you prevent it from happening? How do you prevent Don becoming the story? You can’t. That’s the point I was making. His marital fidelity is of course something between him and his wife. But the public will have an opinion on it. And there is no lack of journalists in NZ willing to discuss these issues at length as you have witnessed by now. How do you keep that in the bag?
Asking Mallard not to throw the name Diane around in the house? Fat chance.
September 14th, 2006 at 7:42 am
Berend:
Something else, I do read The Herald and follow Parliament. While I’m not as plugged into the Wellywood political/media gossip stream as I used to be, or a regular political blogger, I still hear a lot of salacious gossip land in my inbox – some of it obvious bullshit that will vanish as quickly as it sprung up, other rumours are (at least superficially) plausible and have been around for yonks.
It all goes in the Trash, and I don’t think I’ve done ‘the public interest’ any diservice by declining to be a muck spreader.
I also go to work, and no matter how much I dislike or discourage it, office gossip is part of life. Doesn’t mean I rush home and blog that X. in Finance (who happens to be married) is screwing Y. in HR (so much for the scuttlebutt she’s queer as a three dollar coin), or B. on reception is the office bike if you pick up the tab at office drinks on Friday.
September 14th, 2006 at 7:43 am
I talked to a couple of gallery journalists about this yesterday – they’re sad, because they think Brash is a nice guy and they don’t like having to report this kind of thing. Most of the journos in the gallery have very high opinions of themselves and I get the feeling they consider covering stories about who is shagging who to be beneath them.
What’s also sad is that, while there’s a kind of honour in being taken down by powerful political opponents like Cullen and Clark – no matter how underhanded their methods – it’s much more ignoble to be stabbed in the back by a slimy little weasal like Brian Connell. National should have fired his ass when he admitted he hated cats. That’s always a bad sign.
September 14th, 2006 at 7:46 am
I am, for the most part, in agreement with many of Criag’s comments here, and I’m pleased he has condemned the same sort of behaviour by those on the right directed at those on the left. It’s dissapointing to me that this has degenerated into open slather on something that is generally best left out of politics; I am doubly dissapointed to read the feeble, hypocritical attempts to justify similar smears visited upon figures such as Margaret Wilson and Helen Clark without even the basis of being ground in fact by people who profess to be outraged by this attempt to knobble Don Brash is such a contemptible fashion.
I will chime in with Russell, though, that it is remarkable at the public sympathy being experessed for a serial adulterer with so little for the victims of his behaviour – his past and current wives, and his kids.
And I’m breathless at the level of partisan lackwittery that can find some way of blaming non-National parties for the leasking of a matter raised by a dissaffected National MP in the National party caucus to the press.
The only good thing I could see coming from this is people being more aware of how destructive the politics of the morality police, such as the Bretheren, into public life and law can be. Hopefully it will encourage people to back away from it; i would rather have professionally competant but personally flawed MPs that professionally incompetant MPs whose only qualification is having lead a sufficiently uninteresting life that the undie-sniffer brigade can find nothing interesting to them.
September 14th, 2006 at 7:49 am
Andrew Davies wrote:
If pollys want to run my life then I am entitled to know if they can run their own.
*bzzzt* First flaw in that premise, get back to me the day Parliament criminalises adultery with Don Brash’s vote. Second, how about fighting to get politicians the frak out of our lives? Not as much fun as being the global village gossip, I know, but an infinitely more worthwhile use of everyone’s time and energy.
Berend:
If I want fudge I have a very good recipie of my own. Please stop putting your Willy Wonka between my Oompa Loomas and directly address what I’ve said.
September 14th, 2006 at 7:54 am
The up side of all of this is we know without a shadow of a doubt that the leader of the National Party is Heterosexual
September 14th, 2006 at 7:56 am
The only good thing I could see coming from this is people being more aware of how destructive the politics of the morality police, such as the Bretheren, into public life and law can be.
You’re kidding!
This has absolutely nothing to do with thew Bretheren or “morality police”.
Don Brash has personal responsibility for his own behaviour. The “morality police” didn’t make him an adulterer, expose his adultery or have any part in it whatsoever.
This whole sorry saga is about how immorality harms the innocent and ultimatly destroys everything.
September 14th, 2006 at 7:58 am
Craig wrote
Second, how about fighting to get politicians the frak out of our lives?
Precisely, and one way of doing it is the more we know about pollys the less likely they are to interfere with me.
September 14th, 2006 at 8:00 am
Craig wrote
Second, how about fighting to get politicians the frak out of our lives?
Precisely, and one way of doing it is the more we know about pollys the less likely they are to interfere with me.
September 14th, 2006 at 8:01 am
Sadly I think Dr Brash may well have to decide between his marriage and Leader of the National Party. And if your personal life is in disarray then it may be impossible to be at the top of politics. It is hard enough to be effective as an MP in these circumstances, but as party leader when the job comes first and you simply have to have that backing to do the job then it becomes impossible if that backing is not there. Politics is a very demanding mistress at the top, and your partner must at least has to tolerate and accept that fact and support it.
September 14th, 2006 at 8:06 am
Rodger:
First, I don’t think it’s ‘partisan fuckwittery’ to simply point out what Labour MPs have said on the record in the House over the last week. It’s a little too cute to say it wasn’t the catalyst for what Brian Connell did, which (no matter how cute he’s been on Morning Report today) was inevitably going to play out as it did.
Second, my first serious relationship went FUBAR in the most melodramatic way imaginable – I came home from work early, and caught my partner porking my best friend in our bed. I ‘handed’ it by, ultimately, escalating my drinking to a three week bender. So, don’t imagine I’m callous towards anyone who’s been cheated on in a relationship. But here’s the counter question for Russell: If Je Lin Brash is the wronged party here, isn’t it a little rich to be weeping crocodile tears while her private life is being dished up for primetime infotainment?
September 14th, 2006 at 8:07 am
Craig wrote
Second, how about fighting to get politicians the frak out of our lives?
Precisely. And one of the potential ways of doing that is the more I am able to know about pollys the less likely they are to interfere with me.
September 14th, 2006 at 8:20 am
What kind of idiot politician is Connell. He gets a slap from Brash months ago for being a lightweight. No doubt he has been harbouring a grudge ever since. Cometh the moment (Mallard et al) cometh the man (mouse, or is that rat)Connell.
What committment has he really shown to getting his party right on top of the opposition. Just as his team is getting some go forward he goes back to his own goal and belts in a winner. Brian, hello, wrong goal.
Rapturous applause from Team Clark.
I hope caucus is a bloody lonely place for Connell.
September 14th, 2006 at 8:20 am
Hell, if the guy is as “active” as suggested at his age and with the sort of daily schedules that he has been working for the past 3 or 4 years then there is no way he is ready to retire.
Bring it on Don
September 14th, 2006 at 8:21 am
What kind of idiot politician is Connell. He gets a slap from Brash months ago for being a lightweight. No doubt he has been harbouring a grudge ever since. Cometh the moment (Mallard et al) cometh the man (mouse, or is that rat)Connell.
What committment has he really shown to getting his party right on top of the opposition. Just as his team is getting some go forward he goes back to his own goal and belts in a winner. Brian, hello, wrong goal.
Rapturous applause from Team Clark.
I hope caucus is a bloody lonely place for Connell.
September 14th, 2006 at 8:29 am
Brash portrayed himself as embodying “maninstream” values, whatever they are, presumably honesty and fidelity among them, and his reputation as a man of probity and honesty after his term as Governor of the Reserve Bank were also central to his career change. But his actions don’t match his words – that is of political importance. He made this mess, no-one forced him to be an adulterer.His character is deservedly in question, and so it should be for any MP of any party who tries to take the high moral ground when they have such skeletons in their closet.
September 14th, 2006 at 8:50 am
Mikeybill:
So, as a gay man, do you think it would be justifiable to out a (entirely hypothetical) cloested gay Labour backbencher, who fronted up to a gay audience and was widely reported attacking MPs who voted against the Civil Union Bill as ‘homophobic’ and touting Labour as the only ‘gay friendly’ party in Parliament.
After all, I’m sure you could run the line that, twenty years after law reform and thirteen after the passage of the Human Rights Amendment Act, no gay man or lesbian is “forced” to be in the closet, and it’s hypocritical to be accusing others of homophobia while perpetating the notion that it’s somehow a terrible thing to be openly gay.
The hypocrisy is multiplied when it’s being tacitly endorsed by a party that professes to be open and tolerant of people of all sexual orientations.
Personally, I think all the above – which is exactly the arguments used by RW proponents of outing – is bullshit. But you’re the one setting the bar here.
September 14th, 2006 at 8:58 am
Yes Craig, I don’t have any problem with outing closeted MPs, I despise them as moral cowards.I think these things are of public interest.Especially those ones who are publically anti-gay, and I can think of a couple.
September 14th, 2006 at 9:16 am
Thanks, MB. I’ve filed away a permalink to that comment, and will remind you of it whenever Brian The Bish or the Maxim Institution start frothing about how the “immorality” of sodomites disqualify them from any civil rights whatsoever – let alone the right to privacy. If you’re going to open a door, then it’s a little, well, hypocritical to complain when some nasty characters follow you through it. Isn’t it?
September 14th, 2006 at 9:35 am
For fuck’s sake I get so pissed off with these threads so often degnerating into a load of worthless crap on fucken homosexuality.. I know its the paramount issue with a lot of people but I think its the biggest bore this side of the black stump. The issue here is Brash’s infidelity. The issue is always going to be trust. The issue is honesty. Can’t you queers and your fans find somewhere else to obsess???
September 14th, 2006 at 10:04 am
This from the Party of “family values” and “personal responsibility”, and the first thing you do is lay ALL the blame onto an oblique interjection made by Mallard in the heat of a Question time that National had turned into a howling dog-fight.
Corruption and adultery are both unsavoury words, and Brash always had the option to keep his fly zipped.
September 14th, 2006 at 10:50 am
Redbaiter:
Why don’t you piss off and start your own blog – where you get to control comments to your heart’s delight. Still, I think anyone who can be bothered can assess who’s really “obsessed” with (alleged) homosex – well, at least where a certain politician and her spouse are concerned.
Re-Virginised Blogger:
‘Cowardice’ is a pretty unsavoury word too. David Farrar and I post here using our real names, you do not. When you can remember how to spell it, let’s talk about integrity.
September 14th, 2006 at 12:02 pm
I don’t know whether to engage in this silly mudslinging or not.
Oh well, maybe I will.
What really narks me is the assumption that Brash’s wife is hurt and upset. This just portrays her as the little woman, tagging along as an adornment completely under his colonial thumb – an image that has been sickening me for some time, and one which is partly National and Brash’s fault – “meet Je Lan, my Singaporean wife”
We don’t know what she is feeling and we don’t even know she has been lied to. Maybe she has been lied to, maybe she is hurt, alternatively maybe she has given Brash notice that she’s not prepared to live a lie any longer because she wants out for her own reasons. At this stage this is just as plausible.
Until she says what she’s thinking people should stop casting her in this role of poor little helpless cuckolded wifey. Or is that what you think of her?
Just stop speculating and leave them all alone. And that also goes for all those poor journalists who apparently are being forced to report this story – my heart bleeds.
September 14th, 2006 at 2:09 pm
Craigs right re the 2 faced nature of some Members re them coming out. As he says time has passed now for the old excuses and you really gotta question their judgement and fitness for the purpose to use that old commercial law expression.Public figures who deny a basic part of their very being arent in my humble opinion qualified to make judgements that require a balanced human mind.And after all joking aside dont we really all want the very best balanced minds in the Parliament rather than a bunch of fruit loops of doubtful moral and ethically standards
September 14th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
“the first thing you do is lay ALL the blame onto an oblique interjection made by Mallard in the heat of a Question”
Oh, I don’t really think so. All these points have come out in these threads so far.
1. Brash brought this on himself if indeed he is having an affair
2. Labour WERE hinting at it for several weeks
3. Mallard’s comment was hardly what I’d call “oblique” in the heat of anything.
3. That idiot Connell delivered the coup de grace
4. It has been suggested that all of the above has since been exploited by machiavellian forces within national to roll Brash, install Key/English & ostracise Connell until he can be removed from the party.
So, no, not all the blame goes on Mallard, but he is far from blameless.
September 14th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
Is Connell “considering his future” with the party I wonder?
September 14th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
llew:
I think that’s a balanced summary, except for your 4th point. The fourth point is a media beat-up, which Labour are exploiting.
I think what is closer to the truth is that one of the issues Don Brash will be considering over the next few days is whether he wants to stomach the kind of vindictive abuse that Clark, Mallard, Hodgson, Benson-Pope, and Cullen have waged against him. That’s his choice.
In the unlikely event that Brash feels he’s not tough enough to withstand that kind of pressure, then there will be leadership issues. My instinct is that he will realise that he is better placed than anybody to carry on with the leadership and kick all of those pinko arses at the next election.
September 14th, 2006 at 3:45 pm
well it seems that the argument for public knowledge of the private lives of politicos has been sustained by gd.
Otherwise, already there is momentum for some greater transparency in party funding and spending, including a code of conduct for MP’s. Some would include third parties in this, to realise some oversight on influences on parties and the functioning of the democratic process. The focus is however on personal financial dealings, rather than other forms of connections to outside or third parties – social or religious or cultural or traditional or business.
It is of course obvious that media has an interest in “purchased” free speech, as it sells this as part of it’s business operation. Thus they would oppose restraint on third party electioneering.
It is also obvious that the political right is supported by the more moralistic (in the private life behaviour sense) of voters. Thus convention of keeping ones private life private, may be of greater importance to them than those of the other parties. Yet despite this, on occasion, there are blogged comments about Labour personnel designed to encourage that voter support base, to support the more moral National and it’s leadership.
It’s of interest to note the partisanship of some, then and now, in the terms of the line taken.
Personally I don’t regard his behaviour as an issue in terms of who and why I vote. But then, I think private lives are just that. For politicians the public standards are legality and not being a hypocrit (and any code of MP conduct).
National’s problem is that their activity, which media reports on, opened this to public examination. And it is they which have the support base they do and which exploits this to sustain support against Labour and it’s more inclusive social acceptance polity.
And whether some like it or not, the link to a person who sponsored Brash into National Party leadership with financial support inducements, raises the connection to anonymous campaign donations. Which, as an outside anti-corruption watch group says, is something to be concerned about.
September 14th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
I think Connell has long considered his future with the party – foolishly I suspect he deludes himself that he can one day be its leader.
(guffaw!)
September 14th, 2006 at 4:22 pm
IP – I only mention it (the 4th point) because I have read it here & I do admit that I kind of like it.
But like those conspiracy theories we were discussing the other day, to pay it too much heed would be attributing a bit more brilliance than exists.
September 14th, 2006 at 4:35 pm
The real question is, if Connell did not raise the issue at caucus who did?
And why was the caucus matter then referred to as a Connell matter?